choice between one weekend in Amsterdam or Stockholm - Dec 1-3 2023

Dude, a race? Jesus man you'll have time for that when you're back in Minneapolis or whatever. Plus you've been doing races since grade 7 ffs. Go live a little.

Bump

That time of year Amsterdam would be more enjoyable

Amsterdam has been cracking down on tourists.

Amsterdam, no doubt. Just a more fun city overall. Plus, you want to go to Sweden in the winter? Probably not the best idea unless you love snow. Go for a run in Amsterdamse Bos and smoke a doobie for me while you’re there

Amsterdam is weed (can do that here now) and great museums. After that Im not sure what it has to offer. I was bored after 2 days. Pretty dirty, restaurants were meh (ever heard of dutch food? Thought not)

A race may be a good way to meet new people with a shared interest, and to take in the sights?

City turns into country very fast in not car spaces, and running and bike paths connect to suburbs/ peri-urban villages in a way that heals the worst effects of suburban development.
Best wishes to the OP, wouldn’t know which to choose either, interested in Stockholm but haven’t been.

Stockholm has more grenade attacks if that’s what you want

There are free park runs in Stockholm on saturdays. A 5k in Haga park (a central park) and a 12,8 k trail in Huddinge (a suburb to Stockholm city).

I think they have a 5k on saturday at 9am in Amsterdam as well.

Hookers and drugs or surstromming. I’d choose the latter, but I value my physical, spiritual and sexual health.

I lived in Amsterdam for 3 years and it is a great city. That said for early December, I'd spend the whole time in Stockholm. It's beautiful when geared up for Xmas, and the cold is not bitter yet like in Jan/Feb.

Make an Amsterdam stop some other time flying thru Schiphol. December is damp, cold and dreary.

I would stay in Amsterdam because it's the weekend and it's a little warmer and a little less dark than Stockholm.

But both are great cities in Summer.

And Swedish food is great, right?

If you were bored in Amsterdam after 2 days the problem is you.

Not all tourists, mostly just idiot British male sex tourists between the ages of 18-35, who come and get absolutely sh*t-faced drunk and act like complete idiots. Just behave like a decent human and you'll be fine.

Thanks for the input everyone. For my time in NED it turns out I'll be closer to Rotterdam than Amsterdam (for everything other than the actual air travel), and I got a hotel in Rotterdam. It looks to have some decent paths and parks along the river and
I'll have a car if a drive is warranted.

If anyone can suggest a cool running route in Rotterdam, please let me know.

If anyone can identify a public track in Rotterdam, please let me know (the one just south of "ECHOS Home Het Anker" on google maps looks private).

I fly to Stockholm Saturday morning which prevents me from doing the parkrun - I've never done one so that's a bummer. Sunset is also at ~3pm which is wild, but apparently the christmas markets are a thing this time of year.

Wow, parks and trails / bike paths / walking paths in these two countries are on another level. Not to mention food and history and all the other great stuff.

Some random notes pertaining to running:

- tracks in Netherlands are *not* open to the public. My first two tries were in an attempt to do a workout, the subsequent 3 tries were b/c I happened to walk by and was curious to see if any were open to the public. But all 5 tracks were closed off very well (2 in Rotterdam, 1 just south of Rotterdam, 1 in Amsterdam, and 1 in Gouda)

- I wanted to do 12x400 but after 2 failed attempts to access tracks I gave up and decided to just do time-based intervals on a nearby paved path. Wouldn't you know: the path was marked with 50 meter, 100 meter, 150 meter, 200 meter, 300 meter, and 400 meter distances and was a pseudo-monument to (retired Dutch sprinter) Dafne Schippers. Workout sucked but I have a deeper appreciation for how Europe values their athletes. Wij houden van Oranje.

- The olympic track in Stockholm (also where the Diamond League is held) *is* open to the public..... but while I was there 4 snow generators were in use on the infield. So I did a lap just to say I did one and it was through falling snow and 10-15 cm of fresh snow on the ground - meanwhile there was no precipitation in the rest of the city.

- the stockholm Royal National City Park is just enormous - you can run for hours without repeating your steps and without crossing a road. It was cool seeing 3 different groups of runners doing group runs including harder efforts and rest - I can only assume it was fartleks (I didn't know the word's origin is Swedish)